At 100, Josephine Mangia Kellerhof is still every bit as sharp as she's ever been.

"She knows what's going on," her daughter-in-law Martha Kellerhof said. "You think you're whispering in the next room, but she can hear you."

Josephine, who celebrated her 100th birthday March 14 with three parties, said she stays abreast of current events and enjoys the occasional bingo game, if it's not called too fast. She lives with her son, Frank, and his wife in the same complex she lived in with her husband, Frank, who was 101 when he died in 2007.

Josephine was born in 1910 in Ohio to Onofrio and Cosima Mangia.

"My father was in the fruit business. He had his own customers and delivered merchandise right to the home," Josephine said.

She was the oldest girl and had 10 brothers and sisters. She remembers having to care for the younger family members as she grew up.

"I practically raised the smallest ones," she said. "We were very happy."

After graduating from high school, Josephine went to beauty school.

"I had my own shop. My dad made it his business and I got a shop in a house on the same street where we lived."

She ran the shop for two or three years but needed a break after her youngest brother died. She handed over the reins of her beauty parlor to her sister-in-law and a friend, and she went to California with some chums from school.

Josephine went to work at the May Co., a large department store in Los Angeles. Every night, a dapper young man would wait for her after her shift ended.

Josephine met Frank Kellerhof through friends. The young tailor was going out with another girl.

"He was my girlfriend's boyfriend," Josephine said.

Soon, however, Josephine and Frank were an item, but Josephine decided she needed to return to Columbus. However, her beauty parlor had failed while she was away.

"I went back to California and for six months we dated before we got married," she said.

The couple married in 1936, first before a justice of the peace and then in a church at Josephine's mother's insistence.

Her son, Frank, was born Nov. 24, 1939. A few years later a daughter, now Myra McBeth, who lives in Arroyo Grande, was born. The family settled in Santa Monica, where the elder Frank had his own tailor shop and made clothes for the stars of the time.

When World War II broke out, Frank Sr. was asked to work in a defense plant near Oakland as a steel cutter.

"He built Liberty ships there," Josephine said, adding that the family was delighted to leave their cramped Oakland apartment and return to their Santa Monica home at the end of the war. She went to work at Douglas Aircraft where she ran a print machine, and the family thrived.

After years of working, Frank Sr. was experiencing heart problems, so he gave up his tailoring business and he and Josephine moved to Hilo, Hawaii, in the 1960s.

"He didn't like the climate. It was too hot," Frank Jr. said. So Josephine and Frank moved to Hueneme Bay in Port Hueneme, as some of the first residents of the senior community.

The couple traveled around the world and generally enjoyed living at their Port Hueneme home, where they were active in various groups. After her husband died, Josephine moved in with her son and daughter-in-law, who had bought their own place in Hueneme Bay.